McCann New York launched a new campaign for the new York Lotto with the tagline, “You’d Make A Way Better Rich Person.”
Amidst increased awareness of the epidemic of ever-widening income inequality in the U.S. and an economic system designed to exploit the poor, McCann’s campaign features a series of broadcast ads poking fun at the ultra-wealthy. The premise is that extraordinarily wealthy individuals in the city, who often come from families who have retained that wealth for generations, are out of touch with the rest of the world and even, in many cases, reality. You, the everyday New Yorker, then, would find far better ways to use your newfound wealth should you win the New York Lotto jackpot. Among the eccentric economic elite profiled in the 30-second spots are a man who spends $28,000 a week on “pinot therapy,” who yells at his butler for getting a speck of cork in his wine bath. There’s also a “Bat Collector,” “Pet Whisperer,” and a man who ruins priceless art with gold staples, thinking, “It’s probably worth more now.” In addition to the broadcast ads, the campaign also includes radio, OOH and online elements, including a digital field guide, created in collaboration with B-Reel, to “rich people of New York you would be better than if you were rich.”
The irony of the approach is that the lottery largely serves as a means to exploit the poor. So here a major advertising agency is using lower class resentment of the tremendously wealthy as a means of promoting a game designed to exploit the “get rich quick” dreams of the working class. Such moral objections aside, the approach is a clever one and makes for some of the more entertaining ads you’ll see in the category while tapping in to why people throw their money away on such games (which sort of just makes it more insidious).
McCann’s cartoonish caricatures of the rich aren’t the only ones running on broadcast. Deutsch L.A.’s “Too Rich to Care” campaign, which launched in the spring, portrays a series of people as so “stupid rich” that they don’t care about saving money on their cell phone bill.
“Sometimes when you see what the very rich are doing, there’s a lot of fun in imagining how you might do a better job at it,” McCann New York chief creative officer Tom Murphy explained to The New York Times. “You look at the guy who has the massive house on this beach and you say, ‘If I was rich, I’d have a smaller house on that beach. But I’d also have one in the south of France. Plus, a pied-à-terre in Manhattan.'”
Credits:Client: New York Lottery
Agency: McCann NY
Eric Silver, North American Chief Creative Officer
Tom Murphy, Chief Creative Officer New York
Nathy Avriam, Chief Production Officer
Mat Bisher, Executive Creative Director
Grant Smith, Executive Creative Director
Grant Smith, Writer
Jillian Goger, Group Creative Director
Jillian Goger, Writer
Matt Swinburne, Creative Director
Raphael Milczarek, Creative Director
Raphael Milczarek, Art Director
Chauncey Hollingsworth, Senior Copywriter
Stephen Icardi, Art Director
Zoe Kessler, Art Director
Molly Wilkof, Copywriter
Deb Archambault, Senior Integrated Producer
Loly McIndoe, Senior Integrated Producer
Bryan Litman, Senior Integrated Producer
April Gallo, Senior Print Producer
Lauren LaValle, Group Account Director
Geordie Larratt-Smith, Account Supervisor
Rachel Heiss, Account Executive
Mike Medeiros, Executive Planning Director
Kenny Gold, Associate Director, Social
Caitlin Bishop, Digital Strategist
Gingerpic – Frames
Executive Creative Director: Fabiano Feijo
Producers: Ana Azambuja, Ali Lewis
Art Direction: Fabiano Feijo, Fabricio Moraes
3D Manager: Fabricio Moraes
Lead 3D Modelers: Fabricio Moraes, Guilherme Formenti, Gustavo Schinner
3D Shading and Texturing: Guilherme Formenti & Fabricio Moraes
Lead Concept Artists: Flavio Hoffe / Artur Rocha
Lead Photoshop Artists: Veronica Otero, José Feijó, Fabiano Feijó
Andrew Rae – Illustrator
B-Reel – Digital Field Guide
Managing Creative Director: Ben Hughes
Art Director: Mike Potter
Art Director: Marley Stellmann
Designer : Tom Kemper
Animator: Elaine Lee
Motion Designer: Po-Chen Chia
Technology Director: Eric Heaton
Developer: Lucas Dupin
Director of Production: Myke Gerstein
Senior Producer: Ryan Leong
O Positive – TV
Director: Jim Jenkins
Executive Producer: Ralph Laucella
Producer: Marc Grill
Production Manager: Brynn Maguire
Mackenzie Cutler – Post TV
Editor: Ian Mackenzie
Assistant Editor: Mike Leuis
Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfield
Pomann Sound – Radio
Mixer/Sound Designer: Justin Kaupp